Facilitative effects of environmental enrichment for cocaine relapse prevention are dependent on extinction training context and involve increased TrkB signaling in dorsal hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

ABSTRACT: Cocaine-cue extinction training combined with brief interventions of environmental enrichment (EE) was shown previously to facilitate extinction and attenuate reacquisition of cocaine self-administration in rats. It is unknown whether or not the usefulness of this approach would be undermined if extinction training took place in a novel rather than familiar context. Drawing on previous studies involving pharmacological interventions, we hypothesized that the facilitative effects of EE for cocaine relapse prevention would be independent of the context used for extinction training. Rats trained to self-administer cocaine underwent cocaine-cue extinction training in either the familiar self-administration context or a novel context, with or without EE. Rats then were tested for reacquisition

SUBMITTER: Hastings MH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7430990 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature